


Wrath and Pride

by finefeatheredfriend



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon, Canonical Character Death, John Whump, John's POV, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finefeatheredfriend/pseuds/finefeatheredfriend
Summary: The Junior Deputy shoots John out of the sky and tracks him down to kill him. Canon John Seed death from his point of view.This is a chapter I was writing for the Gospel According to Rook. It will still be present there, but written from Rook's POV. I wrote it from John's just to get a feel for it and ended up liking how it turned out, so I figured I'd post it independently.





	Wrath and Pride

John heard the deputy before he saw her, heard bushes being pushed aside and footsteps falling far below. He struggled in the cords of his parachute, gasping for breath. He was fairly certain he had a punctured lung and his arm ached from hitting it hard on something when he had ejected from his falling plane. He thrashed, trying to untwist himself, cursing the pine branches that had grabbed him and cursing himself for bothering to put his coat back on when he had fled the church. He couldn’t reach his knife past where the coat was bundled hard against his ribs where he dangled. Breaths coming ragged, he gave a full-body jerk, crying out in pain and fear as he heard the deputy’s harsh breathing below him. He looked down and saw her, felt a lump in his throat. That he was _willing_ to die for Joseph and his cause didn’t mean he _wanted_ to.

“Deputy,” he greeted her cockily, trying again to reach his knife, his side arm, something, anything to save himself with. She was crawling inexorably up the tree toward him, eyes piercing and furious.

“I was just going to arrest you, Seed. But then you told me…about my dad.” Her face contorted into a snarl of rage. “You killed my dad, you son-of-a-bitch!” she screamed at him as she climbed. At last John reached his knife and he started sawing at the cords, preferring a fast death of falling to a slow one once the deputy reached him. He was right. She was wrath incarnate.

“Technically speaking,” he informed her as he cut through one of the cords, “_I _didn’t kill him. But my man did. Did a great job of taking care of that little problem. Made it look like he was just another junky methhead who didn’t want to go to prison for producing drugs in his trailer. Shot good old Deputy Rook Sr and your Sheriff Whitehorse bought the story hook, line and sinker. I was proud of that one,” he admitted, panting for breath as he kept cutting the lines holding him like a marionette in the tree. He was hoping that making the deputy angrier would alter her focus, slow her down. It appeared, instead, to do the opposite.

“I’m going to kill you,” she promised him as she reached the branch he was hanging from, her voice cold and tone resolute. John felt his pupils constrict with terror. She cut all but one of the parachute cords and he swung out wide, dangling awkwardly like a pair of shoes slung over a powerline in his youth. He slammed back into the side of the tree trunk, gasping out an agonized scream when he felt several ribs break. Grappling down on her own rope, Rook slung a lasso around his ankle and _yanked._

John landed with a _whump_ of air going out of his lungs as his back slammed into the ground. He kicked the rope off his ankle, shed the backpack, abandoning the rest of the chute and scrambling away, not bothering to grab for his weapon, just wanting to get the fuck out of here, and fast. A shot rang out and he screamed, collapsing to one knee as a burning pain sheared through his calf.

“FUCKING _WRATH!”_ he cried out, a half sob. He could hear her behind him. She wasn’t jogging to keep up, was just walking slowly toward him, her Magnum .44 in her hand, outstretched and aimed this time for his other leg. She holstered it and approached him when he looked at her over his shoulder, face creased with pain. He stared up at her, a wounded, frightened animal wearing Gucci and Prada, he thought bitterly.

Rook kicked him so hard in the ribs he thought he’d never be able to draw breath again. He choked, curling in on himself. She kicked him again.

“My father,” a kick, “was a hero,” another kick, “he was investigating your cult,” another kick, “right when you all first _came here_,” she punctuated the last two words with a quick one-two punch to his jaw and then his nose. “He was the only one who could see you for what you are. But you couldn’t let that happen, huh? And then you couldn’t help yourself,” she kicked him again and he screamed when he felt something shatter inside him, “you had to _brag about it,_” she unleashed a series of blows as he covered his head with his arms to try to block the strikes that were raining down on him. “Your sin,” she told him, grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him up, whispering right next to his ear, “is _pride.” _She released him, stepped back, wiping her forehead, both of her hands bloody from hitting him.

John coughed and struggled for breath.

“You,” he said, laughing, wincing at the agony of it, “you are just so _angry_. I wouldn’t even have had to give you a reason,” he chuckled, looking up at her, eyes bloodshot. “You were never going to find redemption. Never going to find peace,” he spat, “And you were always going to keep me from the Garden. I may not have saved my soul, Deputy, but I’m _proud_ to say that I’ve damned yours,” he ground out, suddenly furious again himself. “You can beat me, torture me, and still, you will always be angry, you will _always_ be wrath. You will always pass judgment that is not yours to give,” he was crawling away from her and she was letting him, but he knew he was doomed. “And you can never truly say you ever defeated me,” he whispered, laughing again.

Rook’s face was furious, her hands were shaking. She picked him up suddenly, a wrenching movement that made him cry out in pain again. She slammed him to the ground.

“I hope there is a hell,” she told him, picking him up again as he struggled, “because if there is it means I got to send you there.” Her lips curled in disgust and again she slammed him to the ground. He felt cold water and mud seeping through his once-nice clothing. He rolled, remembering treatment similar to this when he was a child. He laid back, trying to suck air into broken lungs and accepted his death with a little bitter giggle.

Rook approached him and snatched his bunker key, lifting him up roughly by the leather cord it was dangling from around his neck. He forced his head up, feeling exhaustion, knowing he was dying of his many internal injuries. He grabbed her arm with his left hand, letting out a rattling breath. If he couldn’t save himself, maybe he could save their people, the people who needed to stay safe in his bunker for the coming Collapse. There was one last opportunity to try not to fail Joseph again.

“What if Joseph is right?” he asked her with a little half smile, “Did you ever stop to think about _that_? Everyone thinks he’s crazy, but he’s not. Look around you,” he told her, glancing to the side and up for a moment, rasping in a breath. “This world is on the brink. You can feel it in your _bones,_” he said, meeting her eyes. “Look at the headlines. Look at who’s in charge!” he suggested, laughing at one final joke, the ultimate joke. Rook’s face had softened as he spoke this time, and she looked conflicted, looked, for just a moment, vulnerable and scared. John squeezed Rook’s wrist in a familiar, almost friendly motion. “You want this key because you think you’re saving people, but they are already safe. We had a plan,” he told her, shaking his head a bit, tired.

“You don’t understand. You don’t believe.” John felt anger rising in him again. “You don’t _care!”_ She ripped the cord from his neck and he felt skin tear when she did so, one more added pain amongst all the others. Still, he held her wrist as firmly as he could. She had her teeth bared at him, was looking down at him hatefully, glanced to where his hand was holding her wrist as though considering whether or not to hurt him again to make him let go. She wouldn’t have to, he realized as he started feeling lightheaded. “May God have mercy on your soul,” he said, and he found, as he felt Death put a hand on his shoulders, that he meant it. He coughed, feeling his fingers go numb as he released her wrist involuntarily. He slumped back, gurgled, and was no more.


End file.
